Obamacare vaporizes Democrats’ “generic” lead

The Republican Party has pulled essentially even with the Democrats in generic congressional polling. In the latest such polls Republicans are two points ahead in a CNN survey, 49-47, and one point behind in a Rasmussen survey, 40-41.

The RCP average for polls taken since November 6 has Republicans with the slenderest of leads. The margin is one point — 42.8-41.8. This result reflects the preferences of more than 7,500 people.

These polls reflect a huge swing over the course of the last month. John Fund reminds us that around the time the government shutdown ended Democrats led in CNN’s generic poll by 50-42.

As I said at the time, though, “[the] shutdown is over; Obamacare persists.” It is Obamacare’s persistence, of course, that cost the Democrats their large lead in generic polling.

The bad news for Democrats is that Obamacare will persistently spring bad surprises on low-information voters during the next 12 months. Accordingly, as Fund says, “Democrats now realize that they are in danger of running in an nationalized election in which Obamacare may be the No. 1 issue in all of their races.”